Now a few of you may follow me on twitter and might have seen a fairly recent very civilised discussion I entered into in part with Jim Sterling, some-one whom I do have respect for though don’t always totally agree with. Part of it was about the idea of true equal rights. The interesting point brought up was about special treatment. For those who want to call it another name, Positive sexism. It’s still sexism and wrong, it can be seen as equally damaging to Womens’ rights as negative sexism. It should not be tolerated was the point raised.

So once again I step worryingly into another debate about sexism. Sorry for those who have read my previous blogs and advised me to steer clear of it as I’ve been steering as clear as I can without being sucked back in. I honestly have I mean I managed one bit recently and that was actually pointing out something I felt was sexist to a fair degree. Well it turns out as much as I’ve been trying to avoid the sexism in gaming topic until Tropes vs Women in video game put out the second part of Damsels in Distress. Yet it appear while I may be ready to let the topic rest, the topic is not allowed to let me rest.
 
I got called sexist again recently. What for you might ask ? Well, I and 4 other people in a team game got labelled as retards. In a Moba game, this match in-fact.


  
Now the eagle eyed amongst you might have noticed one name is blurred out here. This is so I can do this rant and not be called out for attacking someone, or being mean to them , or calling for mobs to hunt them down.
 
So how did me defending 4 other people in the team lead to me being labelled as a sexist and threatened with being banned ?
 
Well amongst the team was a streamer, who proudly as many streamers do said they were streaming, I missed a fair bit of the pre lobby discussion so I grapsed the whole oh they stream thing from what was being said. I have a thing I do because I find it funny as Streamers normally in control of everything don’t get to control me. I tell really terrible jokes throughout the match, I mean the very terrible ones which as I was playing as the Goddess of Love, well they were just lovely......... hey I said they were terrible. Now the streamer went in the other lane to me, throughout the match said streamer spent most of the time in the jungle and not in the lane. I looked 7-8 times early game and that lane had exactly one person in it. Consequently the lane was fairly quickly lost and by about five minutes it had given the enemy 4 kills. That’s somehow not just the person in the lane but the streamer. So people told them to get back into lane and to watch chat for missing calls etc. Said streamer then said “I’m not paying attention to chat because you’re all being mean to me”. 

At this point only the streamers lane partner was throwing insults and with fairly legitimate reason. When you’re being left to solo a lane by partner who has run off to do their own thing, well it’s a little annoying as you have to work far harder to keep the lane and the general idea is your partner jumps in the lane to help or switch and tries to only leave when they can. This caused many including myself on the team to tell them to watch chat and we’re not being mean just trying to stop us losing the match as it’s a team game so chat is rather important. The game went down hill with left lane losing completely enough that the enemy could just move across from one lane to the next without fear of losing it and just snowball the game. Said Streamer was still running round the jungle trying to earn easy gold. After a few team fights it was over and we’d lost. The parting words from the streamer “We lost because all of you are retarded” then they left the lobby, no gg to the enemy no waiting round for the customary dishing out of the blame.
 
Now I was a little annoyed at this and knowing they were a streamer I put their in game name in, because hell streamers are meant to promote some positivity in the community, by chance I found them. So type into the chat “What the hell, no gg to the enemy that’s bad sportsmanship, oh and maybe it would have helped if you’d listened to us ‘retards’ and not spend the whole game out of lane.” Turns out the streamer was a female, the response I got “You’re only attacking me because I’m a girl, stop being sexist you misogynistic pig or I’ll have you banned.” No really that was the response, the argument then went on as follows, bearing in mind I was in twitch chat here with some very hostile fans whos streamer I’d just called out for insulting people and poor sportsmanship.

Me “How am I being sexist”

Her “Well you were being all sexist to me in game”

Me “Was I ? I was telling very poor quality puns but none actively aimed at you or deliberately sexist, tell me one that was sexist ?”

Her “Well you knew I was a girl and streaming so you were horrible to me all match, you and the other retards on the team”

Me “How did I know you were female ? I saw a username and nothing else until now, I acted the same to you as anyone else in game or any other person who proclaims how they’re streaming the match.”

Her “I told everyone my stream URL and you looked”

Me “I wasn’t even there in the early lobby so I saw now URL. So how again was I sexist to you ?”

Her “You know how, you’ve already said so, I don’t need to tell you, you just were.”

Me “No I said I was telling groan worthy jokes, I am legitimately asking how I was being sexist now ? Also calling people in game retards for asking you to play as a part of a team not run off doing you own thing isn’t a great way to act”

Her “You were being SEXIST ! What the fuck am I supposed to do about calling you guys retards”

Me “Again please tell me when / how I was being sexist. A quick I’m sorry on stream will suffice for the retard comment”
Random person “Actually he has a point I never saw him say anything sexist to you in game”

*Random person has been silenced*

Her “Ok Kodu I’m going to have you banned from Smite for this, enjoy that. Maybe when you’re ready to apologise I’ll get your ban overturned on Smite and here, you’ll have to PM me an apology on her before I even consider it though and tell me what I did wrong.”

Me “Wait what am I being banned for ?”

Her “Being a sexist asshole and attacking me in Smite an here in the stream. People shouldn’t tolerate your kind about and I’ll be happy to see you banned”

Me “So I’m being banned for coming on here pointing out to you that the guys you called retards weren’t as it was you who messed up. Now you’re claiming that confronting you with this is sexist because you’re female ?”

*Kodu has been banned from this chat, his messages have been removed*

Her “you’ll have to PM me an apologise if you ever want to play again, guys in chat if you see this asshole in game again before he’s banned troll the shit out of him and keep reporting him”

So you know what I did, I PMed her, here’s my PM

 
[color=black][size=1][font=Helvetica, sans-serif][i]as you said you were refusing to listen to me in channel chat. 

First if you're going to accuse me of being outright sexist against you I'd like to know what you're basing these accusations on. 

You claimed I said I admitted to it yet I've done no such thing. 

Secondly as you were blaming everyone else in the team for the loss to use your words we we're all "retards" I'd like to put it to you that maybe you also made errors. 
One such one being the lack of time in your own lane, when I checked and admittedly it wasn't often but most of the time you seemed to be in the jungle. 
Next you didn't apologise for the apparent KS to Xbala, I know a kill is a kill but if he felt it was his kill its polite to apologise to him for it. 
The strange fact while 4-5 on one you didn't retreat but hunted the kill also didn't help matters. 

Before you say I'm attacking you for being female, I'm not, you asked for this you actually asked me to point out what you did that contributed to the loss. 
I'm fully aware of what I personally did wrong that match and my own mistakes in positioning and activation and I accept these. We lost as a team unit. from my perspective I saw your lane falling, while in mine we weren't. Infact in my own lane we were slowly winning. however the kill disparity from your lane allowed the enemy to take the advantage. 

By not listening to chat at all during the match you missed potential teamwork opportunities and warnings about attacks incoming. 

I am by no means claiming to be some expert at Smite and worryingly that was my first ever Ranked match so make of that as you will. Again for clarity you asked me to PM you saying what I felt you did wrong, I am NOT blaming you entirely for the loss, I am merely defending the rest of the the team who you claimed lost the match due to being retarded. 

I'm dropping you this PM as you asked me to, however I fear it most likely not what you were hoping for as I am not here begging for forgiveness for some imagined crime, nor asking to be unbanned. 
If you decide to unban me then so be it however to have been banned from defending myself and my team mates in chat with you badmouthing them, I find extremely poor behaviour and a rather horrible form of censorship. 

I honestly expect no reply to this PM though if you wish to send one by all means do as I would truly like to know how I was being sexist to you just by seeing a username, or how you were completely blameless in the loss in a team game. 

Also before its said, I did not see chat for an early part of the lobby. I didn't see you plug your twitch, I didn't see any alleged harassment, as you're claiming that's why you ignored chat so I have no idea what went on for part of the early lobby time. The way I found your twitch was a simple google of your username.[/i][/font][/size][/color]
[font=Helvetica, sans-serif] [/font]


Suffice to say I’ve had no reply to it as expected. Also I’m not banned on Smite or believe me this would be far more of a rant.
 
Now you might have read some of my previous blogs and remember a story I told about getting hell from a game of Red Faction for refusing to go along with a team mates plan when I thought it was stupid. I got hell because as it turns out it wasn’t some 13 year old gobshite but a girl gamer complete with entourage of doting males who too any disagreement as a personal attack.
 
So that’s two incidents right, surely I wouldn’t have a third such thing, right ?
Wrong. I got attacked again for apparently being sexist in a video game.
 
So the story begins with me starting out in The Secret World, because I was in the Beta and now its subscription less I thought “Hey let’s try and get into an MMO again”. 



Everything was fine I was grinding well as a Templar until I reached an area where a simple puzzle is used. If you get one thing wrong in the puzzle it summons a mini boss monster that you have to fight. 

So I’d been there a while when another player comes up. Being an open area other people can also be doing the same quest as you and often you’ll find an overlap even if you aren’t sharing the same mission you can and often do end up helping one another out. I paid little attention to them until Fizz, bang they messed up and summoned a boss monster. Me seeing them and realising they were a significantly lower power than me and I was struggling with the boss monsters myself even at my level I thought I’d do the friendly thing and help them out. So I fired on the monster to get its attention and expected any moment the other person to jump in so we could decimate the boss. Only it didn’t happen, they continued to stand there doing nothing. They then managed to attract some other monster. I thought it would be fine they’d come and help me now they were being involved in a fight. So I lay down an area of effect on the boss and what does the other person do but run with their monsters chasing right through the area meaning the monsters turn on me.


So I now have a boss monster I can barely beat and two normal monsters on me. Did they join in ? No, they went right back to the puzzle. I made it through by the skin of my teeth and walked back over to the puzzle healing back up from about 4 health. So I thought “hhhmm looks like they aren’t going to help me” and with a fizz and bang they failed the puzzle again. So I thought “Maybe them being killed would be a lesson to them” and I stepped far back and watched the boss they summoned rip them apart.
 
With them gone I started back on the puzzle and was getting to near done. They resurrected back up next to me and with a fizz and a bang I failed the puzzle and summoned a boss monster. At the same time as me fighting the boss in the public general chat the following happened.

Other player “Hey Kodu is a real douchebag, no-one group with him ok”

Other player “you hear that you douchebag I’m letting everyone know how bad you are you’ll be ostracised from this games community”

Other Player “This is for flooding the market you douchebag”

Other Player  “Say sorry now and I won’t have you ostracised”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond you douchebag piece of shit”

Kodu “kind of busy here fighting a boss can this wait”

Other Player “no Respond now”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”

Other Player “Respond”
 
I defeated the boss and was finally able to talk in chat and I wish I’d recoded the chat for this as it proves the issue all too well.

The gist of it went like this

Me “So what’s your damn problem then”

Other Player “you are you left me to die on that boss monster”

Me “Well you did the same to me when I was helping with the boss you summoned before”

Other player “So ?”

Me “Well If you’re not going to help me when its actually only to help you then why should I bother ?”

Other player “You’re a douche you know that”

Me “Why  ?”

Other player “For not responding when I commanded you too”

Me “I was kinda busy, you know fighting that boss and everything, I’m really sorry I didn’t stop fighting and die just so I could be at the beck and call of someone attacking me in the public chat channel”

Other Player “you should have responded”

Me “I was busy and also what the fuck are you on about flooding the market”

Other player “By being a douche”

Me “that makes no damn sense how is that flooding the market ?”

Other Player “By being a douche to me just because I’m female, there’s so many MMOs out there and so many guys are douches in them to girl players, I thought here was different and I’d be able to have fun but no there’s players like you being misogynistic pigs to girls like me who want to play them. You’re flooding the market with douchebaggery”

Me “That’s not what flooding the market means. Also you were the one who left me to die then began attacking me in the general chat channel for not answering you the moment you asked something”

Other player “Well that’s what you’re supposed to do you know. Help me with my quests and be there for me, and give me some decent armour, not leave me to die against a boss like that”

Me “It was a boss you’d summoned by failing the puzzle by rights it was your boss, like the first one I fought trying to help and nearly died doing it”

Other player “I didn’t summon the boss”

High level other player “Actually you did as if you mess up on that quest it auto summons one”

Me “And I didn’t touch anything when those bosses showed up”

Other player “It’s so unfair, you’re upsetting me so much here you don’t even know because you’re such a douche fuck you I’m off you giant asshole I hope you die”
 


Now you might think that would be the end of this but oh no I spotted the same person in general chat only 30 minutes later and again there was drama.
 
Other player let’s call her H to make this easier and the person arguing being M

H “Anyone got any spare gear or cash to give to a girl just starting out in this game”

M “Earn it yourself already”

H “That’s not very nice, you’re supposed to help girls out”

M “Why ?”

H “Because that’s what people who aren’t douchebags do”

M “And people with a backbone will tell you to earn it yourself and stop begging in the 
public chat channel, no-one cares about giving you free stuff”

H “Stop being such a mean douchebag to me, just because I’m a girl”

M “No I’m telling you to earn your own damn stuff”

Other girl “Look missy kindly fuck off with your attitude, I’ve had enough of you in chat today, I’m a girl who plays this game and you know what, I never went looking round for hand outs and I never tried to guilt people into things by making them feel they were being sexist if they didn’t. You are what is causing so many people to not like girl gamers, you and your stupid entitled attitude and the reason until now I’ve never even said I’m female in this game because I didn’t want people to think I was using it to get help. I wanted and have got to where I am in this game on my own”

H “I bet you’re not female, I bet you’re just some fat guy in his Moms basement pretending to be female to get some sick perverted kick out of it, because if you were female you’d know you should be trying to get people to help you and having people in these kind of games give you all the free stuff you can get.”
 
I actually left the zone at that point as I really couldn’t stand to put up with this person even in the same chat anymore.

Its actually something apparently seen in MMO's the idea of people playing female characters and pretending to be female to get help or advantages this way, no really.


 
So what’s the point of this rant like article ?


Well firstly to highlight blatant sexism, yes sexism by claiming that because you’re female you deserve special treatment. That’s sexism. This while [u]rare[/u] is in part why sometimes there is some resentment when people proudly proclaim “I’m a gamer girl” because while very rare its sometimes followed by “You should give me shit because otherwise you’re sexist” Now don’t get me wrong I’ve posted about Male gamers who were complete twats before too so to suggest not all girl gamers are complete angels is at least to me fair to say.



Secondly it’s to highlight how calling something sexist is being used as a means of easy attack which seemingly requires little to no justification to use but requires a lot to defend against it. The problem with this being it’s the boy who cried wolf. Eventually due to people claiming something is Sexist as a way to create negativity about it or to justify why people should be against it, when in reality the thing isn’t sexist. Calling something sexist begins to lose all meaning and people won’t pay attention to actually sexist things. Sexism really should be considered like many of the other big claims to throw out in gaming as its almost a nuclear warhead of a claim where to fight against it is damn tough but in the end no-one wins if it turns out the claim was wrong.

For example claiming that all games studios aren’t 50% male 50% female is proof videogaming is sexist has been hinted before. The problem being when you examine the situation fully you find that many computer science courses at best are managing 1/3 of their applicants as female, with many managing actually no female applicants at all. Then you have to ask again that if all games studios don’t have 50% women is its sexist when women only make up 33% at best of the graduates in this area ? People can still suggest the industry is sexist the problem is people then have to point to it beyond “Women don’t want to go into it” well then why ? Tell me why ?
 
Now you might be asking why on earth I’ve gone off on this huge rant here well people already acknowledge there are assholes in gaming the perception is normally that they’re all dudes. The truth is both genders are equally capable of being assholes and I really haven’t seen anyone talk about this before, because shock horror “someone claiming women are capable of malice just like men, obviously we must burn this misogynistic pig and brand him with our swords as we defend the honour of fair maiden”. Yeh, I have no doubt this could upset some people however I wanted to write this and point out that we’re all just gamers in the end and none of us are special snowflakes who should always have the right to get their own way.
 

So I’ll leave you with one final thought and question. With female only gaming clans such as the Frag dolls springing up, is it a negative thing to actively segregate female gamers in such a way to avoid some of the populous or is there a legitimate need for them as female gamers can’t be part of normal clans as such ?


 
 I’m an equal opportunities asshole personally, I don’t care who you are if you start throwing insults I’ll more than happily return some of my own and I have no idea nor care if you’re: yellow, green or blue ; human, alien, robot, cyborg or hybrid the insult won’t be directed specifically to those characteristics nor will I single you out for them as I don’t honestly know that information.

Allow me to preface this review with a few things. Firstly I'm not doing filler in this review to avoid talking about the game this first paragraph has a legitimate reason to be here and allow you the reader to be informed about this.
Secondly allow me to apologise to the games developer firstly for taking so damn long to get this request fulfilled and get this review out, the reason for this delay might become more apparent in this review.

Also I wish to apologise for my slight incompetence of thinking I'd broken the game when it was simple a slightly strange mechanic I'd run into.

Finally allow me to say I hate tower defence games, its rare I find a tower defence game I can and will play the last one being Plants vs Zombies, I have tried as such to be as unbiased either way as I can in writing this review. Also I will be rambling a bit so the more extreme of these will be marked by the text going all Blue so you can avoid it.

Name: STRACO Episode 1

Cost: 80

Review Bit:
So I got a request in my inbox to review this game. Initially I began as I do with most reviews and looked at it on the marketplace. I saw it and didn't expect much honestly, I thought I'd probably slog through it and be able to throw out a review. Well as it turns out it took me two maybe two and a half hours to finish this game, and by finish I mean the main campaign there is also a sort of horde wave based shooter mode with 5 rounds and an infinite mode to extend your play.

The reason I thought it was going to be an easy review and wouldn't be that great game wise was simply the name. What is it with developers putting part or episode in the title for games now ? Seriously I don't think of Half Life episode 1 and 2 when I see that, I think of Half Life Episode 3, you know the frustration and long wait. In indie games this frustration is worse because there's no certainty the story will get concluded at all, I have an indie game from early on in XBLIG's life cycle on my hard drive, its marked episode one, there has been no sequel to it. This is a friendly request to developers please start doing something more original name wise if you want to release multi-part games. If you really want go the Zone of Enders route and call the first game "the First Runner" or "Pilot 1" something a bit more original than episode or part, heck you could even call it "the First Wave".

Honestly looking at STRACO Episode 1 on the marketplace it really doesn't do the game justice, no user reviews / rating on it. An ok if strangely retro bit of cover art and some screenshots in game that still don't do it much justice. The one bit of the market listing that seems to be reflect the game is the actual description.

When I went into the game however I was immediately wowed ........by the menu, that's right the menu screen impressed me. Its actually very well designed, functional and enjoyable to navigate yet it also ends up being different to a standard menu, which I very much appreciate. It's actually very in keeping with the games sci-fi style.



yes that really is what the menu looks like and it really is a radial one.
The menu is even nice to navigate and looks better in motion, so here it is actually in motion for you.



That's one really well designed menu. Oh but it doesn't stop there. this is an indie game and possible the first console game for a long while to have graphics options. No I'm not joking, this is a console game with options to customise the graphics to an extent to fit your liking more.



Honestly I can already feel this game gearing up to go onto Greenlight as some of the options PC players like are already there really and it would need a little work but not much to create a PC ready options selection.

So by this point you're probably shouting at this review going "But what's the game about ? What do you do in it ?" Well to take from the marketplace description "STRACO is a hybrid twin stick shooter and tower defence game." Yes I did just say the word that strikes horror into most gamers hearts around XBLIG titles, I said hybrid, unlike most other hybrids however this game seemingly sacrifices nothing from either genre. The game really is like an updated version of the SNES game Desert Strike but made better, then with a huge deep tower defence game added on. Oh and by deep I'm some-one who enjoys playing MOBA games such as League of Legends and Dota 2, so when I say even I got a little lost in its depths you know its deep.

So before I begin praising it more I want to get the negatives out the way, there are some, well two, and a bit.
Firstly the music, while people unfamiliar with Kevin MacLeod will find the music very enjoyable me personally as someone who's been through and used that site a lot, it was a little annoying to hear the music used here. The problem is not the music, its good enough, it does its job, maybe not superbly but it fits, the problem is the rest of the game seems so polished that having royalty free music in it just seemed to stick out. My advise the the developer is once you've got all the episodes out and if you've made some money from the XBLIG releases get a musician or some-one to do a bit of original music if you plan a PC release of this.

The second one and this is going to end up going blue text quickly is that the game limits you and tries to stop you abusing mechanics to gain too much cash and to power level as such. There are a few spots in the game where the determined person can grind it out but it is very much grinding. Look developers I get it, you know players will cheat and you want them to experience the game the way you planned, the problem is its our play experience, we're mostly mature enough to be able to take the decision to break the game and power through it ourselves and accept the consequences. The reason this came up was initially I thought I'd broken the game as I re-entered a previous level only to have a negative cash figure, this was deliberate to try and prevent people carrying on upgrading. The slight problem I have with this is you essentially aren't replaying the level you're starting the level with the turrets upgraded to the end of level point. I can see the reason for this in one respect as it's to maintain the high score board and the integrity of that, its just a shame that the scores couldn't be separated somehow with an overall campaign run not taking into account replayed level scores. I'm no programmer though so if this is even possible I don't know, maybe a score attack mode or something would work for replaying levels or something without upgrades carrying over such as in campaign.

Yes this would be more work as the developer would need to have a certain standard level of upgrades set for each score attack level by default but it would help out I feel.

One final little annoyance which is more me than anything is I ended up spending upgrades in the campaign on vehicles I only had for one level. the problem was I didn't know they were just for one level so when I lost the vehicles I really did feel like I'd wasted the upgrades. I'm sure this problem is one which will be worked out down the line in subsequent episodes though as I'm guessing from the amount of upgrades I managed that progress might carry over (Which if the developer can do I applaud already as more games should allow this)

Wow that negatives section ran on longer than I'd planned. I was getting them out of the way because I normally tend to give bad games the positives first and as this is a good game, I felt it worth getting the negative aspects out of the way to begin with. STRACO Episode 1 is a very well made game, a campaign that took me 2-2.5 hours to finish is nothing to the passed over lightly, especially as this is episode one. Which is part of the reason for my earlier rant about episodes as this game clocked in as one of the longer games I've played for 80 Microsoft points ($1). The only ones that have lasted longer and not due to re playability have been Minecraft clones and they turned into a grind. STRACO however didn't seem to turn into a grind and kept itself mostly fresh by varying up missions. Ok I will say some of the tower defence sections and the amount of enemy waves stayed a little longer than I enjoyed and did start to bore me however again I don't like tower defence games normally so people who do may love this. When you're not doing the tower defence sections you're often doing a variety of other objectives such ash attacking enemy positions or chasing down specific enemies, or even running from the enemy.

Graphically the game is a 2D top down shooter, the environments do seem quite well designed and do look nice as do the explosions which can be customised. The best aspect of the games art it must be said is in the animations with each unit type being animated differently and very smoothly. Infantry seem to walk along and sway slightly; giant mechs take big lumbering steps and armoured motor cycles nip about the place.




What compliments and completes the games art is the controls and handling of the units. The controls in the game are very much standard twin stick shooter and are very responsive with it.The true genius is that every vehicle feels and handles differently, different vehicles handle better or worse depending on the terrain they're on (except the helicopters because they fly obviously). you might find yourself dashing round on a combat motorcycle only to come off the road and be reduced to a crawl. Each vehicle has its own characteristics, some have better armour and can have shields while others have better turning circles and faster movement speed. Due to this handling it reinforces the fact you are in a different vehicle.

Story wise the campaign is pretty good, well I say pretty good it feels almost like playing an episode of GI Joe. There's a clear evil villain, there's you the clear kind of good guys. The story is interesting enough and while the humour is groan worthy mostly, you feel you're groaning along with everyone rather than groaning at the game. Little things just really push it such as jokes about zombies or interactions with other characters. The story does end on a sort of cliff hanger but after about 2 and a half hours of gameplay the well designed finale mission really did feel like a good end out to episode 1 so I'm not going to bash the game for ending how it did.

Oh and because being an idiot I let my Xbox Live expire I'm posting my campaign score here as I would have beaten the entire top score list online if I had.



Yes I really did get that score and no I didn't grind out any of the places I could have done
I said the game was deep and honestly it really is, you can use the observation / information mode mode to gain details on the enemies attacking, their armour values, weapons strength etc. Its then up to you having been got this information to sort out the defences needed. Selecting the right weapon for the enemy type is part of it but so is upgrading the right stats with some enemies hammering tower health and others being stopped by armour, this also applies to the tower weapon too. With 5 weapon types and two "support" functions and only one being able to be applied per tower it really does add strategy to the game as to if you can afford to put a harvester out to collect more money or if you need all the firepower with you. I have no doubt that true fans of the tower defence genre would be able to find hours of enjoyment here alone figuring out the best compositions and approaches. Then for those like me its perfectly possible to finish Normal mode without needing to go in too deep and the twin stick shooting section works very well.


Trailer:





Verdict: I recommend people get this game. It's very good value for money as over 2 hours of campaign for 80 microsoft points then with the added on infinite tower defence and 5 wave horde mode thing. It's a step above most of the twin stick shooters you'll find on XBLIG as you have the wave based survival with upgrading your character, you Also have the infinite tower defence mode too along with the campaign that's a very good offering. Go buy it now.

Go buy the game


I really do hope the developer carries on this series and makes it so saves do carry over through the episodes (as tough as that may be it will really be good to see done) I really can see this game being completed story wise and then a few improvements made such as the music and a few more graphics options then the game will be a great fit on PC via something like Greenlight. Heck considering the length of episode 1 depending on how many more episodes make up the full saga as such I can see it doing well on steam. Even with just one more episode that's a near 5 hour campaign, more episodes say 3 or 4 total could bring it to a rather amazing length normally only seen with indie game RPGs. Priced accordingly and possibly another rethink of the games cover art (Think kind of cheesy GI Joe meets Transformers style) and this game will be easily at home. Also hopefully it won't need a huge amount of graphical power to run so it might well be a hit more with those with portable lower powered laptops or even a few tablet hybrid things that can run steam (Just not actual tablets as this game needs the ability to use a controller really).

despite its faults its definitely getting a recommendation as this is $1 for over 2 hours of campaign and more beyond that. This is better value than going to seen a action film as you're paying about 1/10th the cost for the same length. This also isn't like a $1 mobile game with lots of extra content you have to pay for this is a game in its own right without freemium costs added on.

Score 4 out of 6 I recommend it.

The Orange Box, a game collection by Valve which to be honest I didn’t know much about until launch day. I walked into my local games store and saw it sitting there. I had vaguely heard of it but didn’t know the release date until I happened to see it on the shelf.

So you might be questioning why I’m calling it marketing genius when I didn’t even know it was coming ? That’s because of what it actually did. Firstly I bought it despite owning Half life 2 on xbox because it contained the PC Expansions in the form of Episode One and Episode Two. Secondly because it was £25 here in the UK on launch day, most games in the UK get a £39.99 tag on launch day unless its COD which can top £55. I saw it as a bargain so I picked it up as to me it was £25 for two expansions, the original game and two other games I’d never heard of called Team Fortress 2 and Portal.

Now it sounds very silly to be saying Team Fortress 2 and Portal were unknown games, but they were, Portal arguably more so than Team Fortress 2. So it now brings up the question of how the hell did it go from unknown title to the phenomena that spawned a full retail sequel in the form of Portal 2. That is the magic of The Orange Box, its true marketing genius. You see what I did and what many other people did was first buy it for Half Life 2 and its expansions / sequels all collected in one spot.




hhhhhmmmmm whats this, a game called Portal, Heavy may try it

Having finished those I then played a bit of Team Fortress 2 because hey multiplayer, then I finally got curious as to this weird game called Portal and decided to boot it up, a few hours later I had finished it and thought it was amazing. I told a few friends about Portal, they picked up The Orange Box because they too thought “Hey Portal is meant to be good, even if it’s not it’s still a good price for a console version of Half Life 2, Episode 1 and Episode 2. Valve themselves admitted Portal was put out to test the waters, almost an extended demo to see if the concept could be made into a full game.

The reason this experiment worked was due to a number of things: the cost of the game itself was low on release which got people to buy it over other new releases; it sold on the name of Half Life 2 and brought some new content to the table with Episode One and Episode Two, so people had a reason to buy it, and it then threw in two pretty new franchises. With Team Fortress 2 they were putting out a cartoony sequel to what used to be a fairly serious Militaristic FPS mod. At the time I heard of people in the original Team Fortress community denouncing the games art style and claiming they’d never play nor would it even be a hit. Portal similarly was by developers new to Valve bringing a new puzzle game style out which was untested.

I’ve questioned before if gaming development was becoming too bloated and costly, others have asked why new IP isn’t looked at much and publishers are less willing to fund its development. Valve found a way into the market and honestly hit marketing gold with this concept as it allows the linking of an existing IP to a new franchise in such a way that fans don’t become alienated such as the Xcom FPS. Capcom did a similar sort of test with Dead Rising 2 Case Zero to test the market and see potential sales, a smaller taste of the game for people to decide if they want to buy the larger game. The important thing is it wasn’t just a demo it was a game in its own right.



With companies forever seemingly doing HD remakes and collections of their previous titles, it’s now almost a perfect time for many of them to try The Orange Box approach and with the HD collections and remake, slip in a smaller game, a new IP a small version of the potentially larger project. Think of it like slipping in say the first episode of an episodic game in with something else. Make sure the game can stand on its own as such and the sequel can follow on and then release it testing the waters before as a publisher they go and dive in head first. If the game becomes a hit you’ve managed to prove it worth making and are getting more sales of the HD collection from people just wanting to play this specific game you put on it. The cost can be considerably smaller and the risk far less as if the game turns out to be hated, you won’t get the huge waves of hate because “hey it was just something we threw in with the HD collection”, people will have gone and bought the game because of the HD collection / remakes with it. This even solves part of the marketing problem and expenses around that as you simply market the HD collection and if the publisher / developer wants, they just mention the other game as being included or at the end of the advert. The model has been proved to work with Crackdown famously having the Halo 3 Beta with it and other games selling with the Betas for future games included with them. Customers aren’t up in arms about the association of one games name with another this way because to them they see it as getting something extra.



It shocks me in the present age that more companies aren’t trying this as for the cost of one full new AAA IP you could put out what maybe 5 budget taster games or more. The risk being far smaller as you are testing the market with far less investment required and far less resting on the game being a hit.

My question is, why don’t more publishers do this ?
It seems a pretty easy thing to maybe bundle a new IP with a similar old one in a taster form along with HD remakes etc. Companies are very much about the “Oh you liked this, you might also like this”. However this is a step further which actually benefits customers as they get new IP and something else with their HD collection, whilst benefitting publishers and developers by lowering risks and allowing the trial of new IPs for a lower cost and potentially generated more sales of old IP due to adding in something new with it.

Advanced warning, as this is a blog about violence it will contain material, and links to material unsuitable for younger, readers, as such if you are below the age of 18 and continue reading this then its the problem of your parents for not monitoring what you're doing and stopping you. That is if they feel anything in this blog is inappropriate for you and are about to complain


So Violence in games. It’s seemingly the media’s new chew toy to once again bring up the debate on violent games as though it’s some shocking great demon that’s just been found again.
Now before we go on I want you to watch this.



What you just saw essentially was 4 people beating up an old man with pool cues to the sound of Queen. What purpose can that possibly have in a debate about violence in video gaming ? Well it shows violence being used to play on the comically absurd. You probably won’t ever see four people beating a old man up to the sound of Queen using pool cues in your life, unless you live in an particularly rough area with rather deranged people. Comic violence is a brand of comedy in is own right.



So the main claim against violence can be summed up nicely by this “Without choice there is no morality.” So should all games be offering morality as this is an interactive media ? Well yes and no. Yes in the sense that games with choice should happen. No in the sense that every game shouldn’t be forced to try and let the player choose, if you’re trying to tell a certain narrative then adding choice in can break that narrative or make the choices themselves seem meaningless (unless that’s the aim of them). Say making a game about Star trek, no not the original blast the bolche alien one the next generation but without diplomacy. Star trek is the perfect example of a way people could be given choice in a game and it make sense as you can either go with just shooting the aliens, or being diplomatic and trying to solve the problems your own way through words.

To anyone who claims violence is wrong and should have no part in gaming. I put this forward for you to watch.



For those who don’t know that’s possibly the most famous scene in what’s known as a classic film, it’s from Reservoir Dogs. So to say violence has no place in gaming is to deny the potential of gaming and a medium for storytelling.

The most obvious call for this can be seen in the seeming misconception as to what gaming is. The best and most recent example I have was of someone claiming they would never let their grandchild play COD Black Ops II due to the content in it being so violent. My simple reply to them was this “Would you let your grandchild watch Psycho or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ? If not then see no reason to complain about the content of Black Ops II as they are also 18 rated products just as Black Ops II is”. The idea of violence being a bad thing in the industry is in itself denying adults choice. Should Game of Thrones be less violent and adult orientated ? No because it’s clearly marketed for adults it’s a choice to watch it. If little Timmy gets hold of it then it’s not the games fault. During a recent visit to Gadget show Live here in the UK I had to show my Id no less than 5 times, I’m 24 and I had to show my ID to play games at a public show, on the show floor because they were rated 18. Some of the companies even had the game in enclosed areas completely blocked off from the view of the rest of the show floor. Companies get this mostly now, they realise the importance of making sure this is communicated to customers.

I’ll happily play games with violent content and I don’t think I’ve ever turned round and ever said “you know this is good but it would have been better without the violence in it”. This is normally because it serves a purpose. Even in the game being shown in the article header it has a purpose. In Splatterhouse the game deliberately creates a Ludonarrative dissonance between the essential love story with Rick fighting to get back Jennifer his love and the amount of creatures Rick is butchering along the way rather brutally. The game then breaks down this Ludonarrative dissonance and questions if this is in part the nature of love. It asks if all this violence is enjoyable to Rick and if this is his true nature. Comparing the strong emotion of love and the strong primal concept of violence asking how you can shun one and accept the other so much. Or in the case of the US shun certain things associated with love but be fine with violence.
To say Violence has no narrative role to play would be to deny for example in literature Romeo and Juliet. The whole story is both about love and violence, two families basically at war. The death of Mercutio at the hands of Tybalt accidentally, Romeo taking revenge then being banished. Violence is a key part of the events of the story, so to remove that would remove part of the impact and potentially break the narrative.
Violence used well in a narrative can and does work as a tool to tell the story, a method to portray symbolism. Just like any other narrative tool used well it works, used badly it seems sloppy and poorly done.


You wouldn't think this was a love story would you ?


I’m not a violent person. I did Judo for a while and quit because despite my best efforts to prevent it I caused some people some injuries during it. The coach at Judo was forever telling me to really go for it as he knew I was holding back for fear of injuring people and honestly I lack the killing instinct as such to go for it as I never wanted to harm people. Luckily the worst of the injuries was a broken arm but I still felt terrible for it. In games however its often not real brutal violence is stylised violence. I’m not killing real people with real backstories and real families in these games. The operator of the Peter Molydeux twitter account once suggested having a game like call of duty but every time you kill a person it triggers a short cutscenes showing flashes of their life and family. The idea of the tweet being to illustrate the clear disconnection between real life violence and video game violence.

Why would we deny violence ? Because of the children ? Please children’s make believe is just as much fantasy violence as video games. Do you see most parents going round telling their kids to play lawyer rather than soldier or cowboys and Indians ?

Why should violence be something left out of games when it’s stylised violence and often does not depict the brutal reality. I’m saying this as someone who has been threatened to be beaten to a bloody pulp before and with potential Nuclear war with North Korea on the horizon. To say violence is somehow irrelevant to modern society is honestly nonsense. Violence in games has a place and stylised ultraviolence also still has a place just as it does in films and books. You don’t see people coming out to say that Frankenstein girl vs vampire girl or Tokyo gore police would be better without the violence and just the narrative.

I will say one thing and that I have slightly against violence in games it’s more of an indirect effect though. The lack of actual kids games about. The Wii and now Wii U might be seen as the childish console but honestly they seem far more balanced than the other consoles. I may be old enough to not care much but when I grew up with games like: Banjo Kazooie, Super Magnetic Neo, Toy Commander, Sonic adventure and of course Mario games. Outside of Nintendo consoles and a few titles on the other consoles. Mostly Kids seem to get the shovelware and don’t really get the higher quality games so much, it’s very much like companies are simply piping out low budget cash in to play on brand recognition with kids. Even compared to last generation when apparently a few Sponge Bob games were passable, now this console generation checking up I’ve found one Sponge Bob game, a silly crappy little party game. The only multi console kids game I can really name from this generation are Rayman Origins and Skylanders / Giants, Skylanders being a rather obvious money sink aimed at Kids getting their parents to buy them more little toys. You could also argue that Lego games are for kids but then again they’ve always been around from the days of Lego Racers really, and yes Sonic still exists but they aren’t the blockbuster things they were, gone are the days when you’d walk into game and ask for a Sonic game only to be told they sold every copy in their batch before 10am on release day. The quality isn’t there.

What this appears is more of a chance to capture a larger audience by aiming at the larger group with more disposable income in the shape of the teenager / young adult demographics. It seems while Skylanders is proving that kids games can be successful still most companies are trying to appeal to an older audience and as such think violence is the way to go, which to an extent can be said to be true. This in part explains why IOS and tablet gaming is expanding with games aimed at kids on those platforms more. It can also go some way to explain the runaway success of the Wii as when in the longest generation of console for a while, it seems strange that there have been the least really great kids games. And not Kinect doesn’t count.

This is again very much like the comic book scene where the 90s had dark brutal re imaginings of characters and could be said to have gone away from being what it initially was, a form of entertainment for children. Again comics have bounced back and do appeal more to all ages now rather than their rather brutal time in the 90s. The fact there have been shows such and Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans and Young justice shows that bounce back. I think next generation we might see a bit more of the bounce back as publishers realise how neglected the kids games market it and how they can gain a bit less ire from the media by making sure they also supply childrens' titles. So if the media does point and say "oh look at this horribly violent game" Publishers can turn round and say "Well we also published this one recently, see the nice 3+ label on it compared to the 18+ on the game you're attacking, we clearly aimed a game at kids and one at adults. I don't see you objecting to the 3+ game not tackling complex morality issues. "



So violence really does have a place in gaming, like it or not we live in a violent world and to claim “violence is bad in any form” results in the question of where the line is draw. What do you consider violence, is Mario stomping on a goomba’s head violent, is Kazooie firing and killing an enemy with an exploding egg violent ? If people want to claim violence shouldn’t be in video games, short of Tetris and Peggle there’s not many other pacifist games even in the kids genre. Even chess in a certain light is rather adult.




I put it to you dear reader that violence is just another tool to tell stories, one which can be used well by a skilled craftsman or poorly by an unskilled one. Rather than blaming the tool maybe the workman should be blamed if the violence is seen as poorly done or perceived that way and people not simply calling for the tool to be removed entirely from gaming. For in a world without violence can we have any triumph, can we still have the epic clash of good and evil ?

What with the likes of Cliff Blesinski himself saying about Gears of war 3 that its day one DLC skins were a just a sign of the industry long ago I thought it was probably about time to ask the question about the industry and ask if we’re being too greedy to get there deep super high resolution pictures in gaming or if the publishers are pushing too far just to be able to say they have a larger solid gold 4K cock than another publisher.



What is absolutely apparent in the industry is that development costs have gone kind of through the roof. The general idea was that you worked at your affordable level now there are tales of teams up to 600 strong working to make the next release of a AAA game. Publishers are forever trying to push for a broader and broader audience and while admirable to an extent wanting to make something everyone will enjoy, the problem is it’s not going to happen. You See plenty of people like Justin Beibler, but to me he sounds like a dog having a nasty accident and seems like a little bit of a prick, nothing more than a marketing tool to sell crap to gullible fans. However as I’ve proved I’ll happily be that gullible fan when it comes to things I enjoy. Everyone is different and as such maybe it’s not best to try to appeal and its far better to go with the artistic vision, be that of a Female protagonist or a purple creature named yelp.

The seeming need for mass appeal is in part due to the industry expecting near permanent sustained growth in profits, that is seemingly what investors are being brought in with the promise of vast returns, so in turn the games have to try and make this money. When they don’t even though they will have made some money, Investors no doubt feel let down and will go elsewhere. So how are they trying to regain these profits as such ? Why more content of course because if there’s one thing most publishers seemingly think now it’s that consumers are waling piggy banks. The problem being its being proved false. One of the reasons I lament the loss of THQ recently is that near the end they were understanding it, on WWE 13 I bought the game for £20, then there was DLC all price appropriately, you could buy the pieces individually for 80 Microsoft points each or the lot for 1200. Now that’s 1200 points for a season pass essentially. I was fine paying it because the game and the season pass only add up to about the cost of one of any other companies games. With Activision charging 1200 points per map pack for Call of Duty its showing publishers still don’t seem to be getting it.

At present companies are calling games failures yet to put it in perspective. Twilight a film series hated by 70% of all males had a budget of $37 Million and made $392 million with a further $200million on retail sales of DVDs. Tomb Raider had a budget of $100 million apparently, it “only” sold 3.8 million copies which was not enough. Now that’s without sales of things like season passes. The rather obvious problem is the huge bloated budget, it’s three times the budget of Twilight. Now you might say that’s not comparable well to put it in comparison the Tomb Raider film cost $115million to make and made, bearing in mind cinema tickets cost a bit less than games, $274 Million, this is also not accounting for DLC sales and things like the season pass coming with the game. It says something that the budget for Tomb Raider the game is now almost the same as filming and doing the things for real with all the safety guys etc. You have to begin to ask where the money went. Was super high physics hair that will run on only one type of graphics card on only £1,000 + gaming rigs really worth it ? Were people complaining that Lara’s hair wasn’t realistic enough ?

What it seems is that developers just don’t understand budgets and can’t predict sales anymore. If you check back there’s reports of Tomb Raider: Anniversary having a budget of $2million. So the most recent title has a budget now fifty times that size. Just wow.
But who is really driving these costs up ? With Minecraft having sold 9 million copies on PC alone, I’m pretty sure it’s not entirely fans calling for these higher and higher end graphics. The truth is development has become bloated and the video games industry has become a far more competitive place with far more choice. While Lara Croft had a fifty times bigger budget it only sold about a million more copies than the previous game. Does anyone care Minecraft Steve isn’t voiced by Tom Cruise ? I doubt it. So is it really that important to have big Hollywood star names in the game ? No, not unless you really believe they will somehow sell more copies of the game due to their star power. However you have to remember in films you see them, in games they are really just a voice for a character.



What should be becoming clear the companies is that there’s a clear problem in their model somewhere if games are costing more than feature films now to make, selling for more than films and yet for the developers to still be claiming that they need to sell you all this DLC and they need to charge for it in some cases up to the cost of the game again. Will I pay £2-£5 more for a DVD with a load of special features ? Sure if it seems worth it. Will I pay twice the cost of the standard DVD ? No. Just because you’ve budgeted so much for a game is no excuse to then try to screw over customers because that’s the only way to meet the insane sales figures you need to make the returns you told investors they could get.
It’s a worrying time and very similar to the comics bubble in the 90s when speculators invested in comics hoping to get the next big money comic down the line, so companies tried to pander to this demand by releasing lots of first issues and big dramatic stories with characters being killed off. What eventually happened was people realised and the speculators went elsewhere as they discovered that they weren’t going to get that giant super high worth comic. Companies closed and for a while the industry was in a bad shape. It recovered but video game companies stand to take an important lesson from this and not to constantly go all in on every idea or you might find the U draw tablet wasn’t every kids dream and snap out of the illusion that their next game will be Citizen Kane. If their game does make it big good, however companies should not be banking on it making it big. Companies need to realise the consumer won’t be bailing them out. They need to work within their means and not think of consumers as their pay day loans guy bailing them or soon they might discover they are in rather a lot of trouble as they realise the nice consumers soon turn out to be debt recovery agents called Nigel with bats breaking the companies’ financial stability.


Hello 90s comics

To be on the cutting edge costs money, it’s no secret. For me with video editing to keep up with the latest software version is about £80 a year. I pay about £40 a year mostly because I work a year behind the present version. Do we really need games companies to be producing Pixar level graphical fidelity or is this actually a different medium which can afford to work a year behind. I mean as you go higher the costs do too but just like the public software the professional stuff also does very similar price changes from year to year.

With 4K as a seeming future thing, I have to say, I’m happy at HD, I was happy before HD too. I play games to be engrossed in them. If I wanted to be wowed by 4k explosions I’d be in the cinema watching an action film. Sure I can appreciate nice looking things in games, but I’d rather see gaming survive though than the exponential cost increase to 4K at present, kill it. The fact retro and mobile games are so popular should help companies realise that they no longer need to push, this isn’t the bit wars era anymore. Having your game on the 32bit system over the 16 bit won’t impress people as much anymore.

So has gaming delved too deeply ?
Who is getting it to delve there ?

So with a certain huge rage going down due to the comments of a certain ex Microsoft employee, depending on when you’re reading this. I thought I’d throw my thoughts into the inferno oh nice warm hate generated by the anti consumer nature of the comments.

I put it to you that next generation consumers don’t have to deal with shit. Gaming is growing and its gone beyond the big few consoles now: Mobile gaming is growing, the Ouya is now out as another console, Laptops are becoming near gaming rigs themselves and its three console market even now. So Microshaft expecting consumer blind loyalty are in for a huge shock. I previously wrote about how Microsoft designed the Xbox in such a way to create loyal customers and people unwilling to leave.

The problem is that illusion has been breaking down. Microsoft have failed to realise that they don’t have a captive consumer audience. When it comes to consumers keeping your old ones happy is far more cost effective than seeking new ones with advertisements, yet Microsoft don’t seemingly get this.


We're not missing this attempt to blindfold us we know you want to cut deeper and hope somehow blindfolding us will stop us feeling it

Now Microsoft have hinted that about possible IPTV and original programming on Xbox as such. Which makes me ask the question “Why did you then close down your studio ?” If Microsoft were serious about original programming then it makes very little sense that they shut down the studios behind some of their original video content and sacked the staff. Microsoft previously had people making content such an inside Xbox for them and yet they shut down a studio that had been doing just that ?

Now the claim seemingly is or at least was that no-one would be hit by always online. Sure I’ve lived without technology for times in my life as I chose to spend time away in the middle of a forest with no even Mobile phone signal. So everyones saying “Oh what’s the problem you’ve done that before if you lose connection you can do it again right ? “ Here’s the thing, I decided to do that, it was my personal choice. I didn’t however have some big company screwing up and telling me “Oh you can’t use this now”. When I’ve paid for something and legally under EU law I own the thing now why should someone else be telling me I can’t use it now ? Why should I be reliant upon another company to provide a service when previously I could happily independently do the same thing.

“Oh but Cloud saves.”
Don’t care and I’ve never used them. I have maybe 3 Terabytes of accessible storage that’s very portable to hand if I wanted cloud saving, then the option is nice, being told I’m having it is not something I want.

“But what if you’re a Pirate ?”
So you really think Pirates are going to care and be stopped by this ? Please. Pirates crack most DRM within at most a month of launch, claiming its stopping pirates is nonsense. If you want to do DRM do non copyable code DRM, what this does is mean certain features don’t work on the copied version. Other games have done this and the best thing is, it annoys pirates far more than standard DRM. If at certain points in the game a pirate version glitches out, messes up or breaks 2 hours in. It’s annoying the pirates by having the DRM later in its been used a lot in different games: Batman Arkham Asylum had the cape glide not work and a part of the game requiring you to glide; Serious Sam 3 had unkillable scorpion enemies in the game and prevent you progressing and The Witcher originally replaced all the women you could sleep with, with different models of less attractive women warts and all. This kind of DRM is the way to stop pirates as they have to play into the game, then stop and break the immersion themselves to fix the next broken thing to continue, again and again. Heck setting it to suggest they buy the game now they’ve played a good bit could generate sales as you promote to the pirate that it would be so much easier to continue playing if they supported you the developer.


Super Pirate don't care about that DRM you tried to put on he eats DRM for Breakfast

DRM as it is with always online and invasive DRM doesn’t stop pirates and in reality mainly impacts the legitimate consumers more. The bottom line also is pirates will still pirate, if they are that determined you aren’t gaining sales from them, all you’re doing is having one less person playing or talking about the game. If you really consider pirates copies as lost sales the question shouldn’t be “how do we stop them” but “why didn’t they want to support it ?” If customers feel they’re getting value for money and will do they’ll buy it and if you’re marketing is doing its job people would be buying it. Yes some people will always pirate games as they are just that determined however that’s not a sale you’d have got anyway, they’d simply have pirated a different game and not even talked about yours.
It should always be the job of the developer to prove to me why I should buy the game, not my job to prove to the developer I did buy their game.

“But social features”
If I’m playing a single player game, I am making the choice to not be social, do not try and force this on me, I want the option there sure but if I’m playing single player, chances are I’ve made my choice already.

So why am I mad about the idea of always online ?
It’s the removal of that age old thing of choice, I’ve talked about it before and hinted to it related to pre-owned games. Always online is giving the choice to someone else a choice that impacts me, it’s a control measure. I can only play when the servers are working and I don’t get to choose the value I get from the game, if a developer decides they want you to get the next version of the game, they can. Heck I saw Tribes 2 shut down 10 years on and you know what the developers did ? they released the source code to modders and let them create a way to keep the game going, they even offered a full refund to anyone who felt they didn’t get their moneys’ worth yet.

Damn it publishers, console sales are going down and you guys aren’t helping this by making it more awkward for customers, you’re not making these sales targets and if you want to keep making consumers jump through fucking hoops some will just give up and say there’s too many hoops. The truth is customers don’t have to deal with shit. There’s three consoles on the market at present and with the Ouya it’s another way to go along with the huge sales of tablet and mobile gaming. This with the steam box on the horizon which may well be you know the giant bogey man the console market should be seriously afraid of. What will happen not next gen but the generation after if always online is a thing ? Sure it sounds good now “Oh customers will be forced to move on to the next console as their games no longer work, or will be forced to pay you more” However that completely forgets consumers have the choice to you know, not do that. They could stop. Publishers don’t seemingly realise gamer good will is not infinite towards them, if they burn gamers, gamers will shy away from purchases next time. Hell with the growing retro scene and large amount s of home brewed and alternative games often still coming out for older consoles, people could at any point just decide they are happy and stop moving on , play through the huge selection of games people have an that many people have no doubt built up as back logs or simply overlooked for other titles.



Customers aren’t guaranteed and as is being shown with companies such as Square Enix and their predicted sales figures, you can’t guarantee sales. Customers aren’t a certainty and taking them for granted will cause the next gaming crash. So before complaining about anything about your customers remember, you need us, we don’t need you and if you don’t like that, maybe you should #DEALWITHIT